How to grow beets

DON'T LOOK SO BAD: Beets are very nutritious but they suffer from an image problem. (Photo: B.D.'s world/Flickr)

Beets can seem like somewhat mysterious specimens – especially the gelatinous canned variety. But these bright-red root vegetables are a sweet addition to any edible garden and every vegetable lover should know how to grow beets.

Named among the world's healthiest foods, beets are rich in phytonutrients called betalains that have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and detoxification effects in the body. They're also a great source of folate. Quartering unpeeled beets and steaming them for fifteen minutes preserves nutrients and makes them deliciously soft. In addition to the crimson flesh of beet roots, the chard-like greens are edible and often eaten in salad. In fact, chard – a beet cousin - is sometimes called “bottomless beets.”

Beets love cool weather, so they're best planted in early spring and in late summer for fall harvest. They can be planted up to 30 days before the last frost of the spring season, and flourish in soil temperatures between 65 and 75 degrees. Beets perform well when planted alongside bush beans, onions, kohlrabi, cabbage, broccoli and lettuce.

Types of Beets

Though most people are familiar with red beets, you may not know that beets actually come in white and golden-fleshed varieties and in an array of shapes from spherical to flat and long. Though the 'garden beet,' Beta vulgaris conditiva, is the type grown for food, there are two other types – sugar beets, which are grown for refined sugar, and fodder beets, used as animal feed.

There are a wide variety of garden beet cultivars that offer different advantages. Ruby Queen and Sangria are picture-perfect, round and red; Sweetheart is extra-sweet; Little Ball is small and tender and Golden has a buttery color and a mild flavor. If you plan to grow your beets for their greens, some good choices include Green Top Bunching, Crosby Egyptian and Early Wonder.

How to Plant Beets

Choose a planting site that gets full sun throughout the day.

Amend the soil with compost and loosen to a depth of at least 12 inches. Beets are at their most tender when grown in loose, sandy soil.

Plant each beet seed – which is actually a cluster of seeds in a bit of dried beet flesh – at a depth of one-half inch, about one inch apart in rows spaced 12 to 18 inches apart.

Water well and keep the soil moist throughout the season, but protect the soil from hard rain that could cause the surface of the soil to harden.

Thin seedlings to one to three inches apart. Thinned plants can be eaten raw in salads.